More hostages freed but Sadr remains defiant

IRAQ: Shia guerrillas clashed with US troops near Kufa yesterday as their leader, rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, defied demands that he disband his militia to spare Iraq's shrine cities from bloodshed.

Meanwhile kidnappers are holding an American soldier hostage, it was reported last nightnight. Military officials told US media that they had received a video, believed to show one of two GIs who went missing on April 9th.

Earlier, a Syrian-born Canadian aid worker kidnapped on April 8th was brought to Sadr's office in the nearby city of Najaf and set free after the cleric urged the release of foreigners not involved in the US-led occupation.

"At first [the kidnappers] beat me, then they kept moving me to different locations every few hours," Fadi Ihsan Fadel told Reuters at Sadr's office, shortly after arriving.

Sadr, who launched a Shia uprising this month against the US-led occupation of Iraq, is holed up in Najaf with US forces poised outside vowing to kill or capture him.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said three Czech journalists had also been freed. "They are alive, healthy and are in good physical...condition at the Czech embassy in Baghdad," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vit Kolar said.

Three freed Japanese hostages flew from Iraq to Dubai earlier yesterday, but two Japanese remained missing, along with other foreigners seized in a spate of kidnappings this month.

A Danish businessman joined the hostage list. Danish media said he was probably seized during a highway robbery on Tuesday night in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Blasts shook Kufa, where Sadr was preaching in the main mosque, and his militiamen said they ambushed a US convoy.

Hospital sources said at least five people were killed and 20 wounded in Kufa.

The US military said eight Iraqis were killed and 17 wounded in the northern city of Mosul when mortar bombs fired by guerrillas missed their targets - a US base and a police station - on Thursday night.

In other violence in Iraq, US troops fought Sunni guerrillas in Falluja, west of Baghdad, and a hospital official said 15 people were killed and 20 wounded in overnight clashes.

America's top general said on Thursday Falluja truce talks could not go on forever. But Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said US officials were using "multiple channels" to pacify Falluja and avoid fighting in Najaf.

Defiant at Friday prayers, Sadr said he would not disband his militia under any circumstances "because I did not create it on my own but with the co-operation of the Iraqi people".

The US military, with 2,500 troops near Najaf, says the Sadr's Mehdi army must be disbanded or destroyed, but they have allowed Shia clerics and an Iranian envoy to mediate.

Iranian envoy Hossein Sadeghi met officials of the US-led authority on Wednesday. Tehran said his mission would continue even after an Iranian diplomat was shot dead in Baghdad on Thursday.

There was no sign military action was imminent in Najaf, home to some of Shia Islam's holiest shrines. Any attack in Najaf could inflame Iraq's Shia majority, whose support is vital to US plans for the country's political future.

Lebanon's top Shia cleric said Washington would fan fury across the Muslim world if it invaded Najaf or attacked Sadr.

"All of this will set the ground burning beneath their feet, not just in Iraq, but in the whole of the Islamic world," Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said in a sermon.